Awl Mighty Tools: Comparing Experimentally Created Animal Bone Tools to Archaeological Examples

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Animal Resources in Experimental Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Experimental archaeology supports our understanding of past lifeways and how artifactual materials were created. In zooarchaeology, its use in interpreting how previous populations may have crafted animal bone tools is imperative to identifying preforms and other stages of the manufacture process. The Northern Arizona University Faunal Analysis Laboratory (NAUDAFAL) has conducted several experiments creating bone awls from pronghorn and deer metapodials. These experiments included both standardized experimental creation and use of the tools and additional assessments to improve the pliability of the bones with heat prior to their manufacture. The goal of this experimental research was to compare our results with archaeological materials. As such, throughout our analysis of the Houck faunal assemblage curated at the Museum of Northern Arizona, we used our experimental bone tools to assist in data collection and tool identification. For this presentation, our comparative analysis focused on metapodial awls, specifically striation patterns, cut marks, and general shape of the tool. We determined that the markings on the experimental and archaeological awls were similar to each other, suggesting NAUDAFAL’s methodology for constructing bone awls may be similar to the method used in the past.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Animal Resources in Experimental Archaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37284.0